I can't say the Forum is a good thing but I do think that closing the Locals Boards will be counter productive. It is the only source I can see of information from outside your realm. It enables people to get a grasp of the politic of a island; when I joined I read the forums purely for the information that they contained.
You would lose a great asset to the game if the Locals board was closed down permanently. As I for one would not know what was happening outside of my realm otherwise.
